Man Of The House Bringing linens out of the closet turned this retail maverick into a household name.

When the department store muckety-mucks he worked for tolddivisional merchandising manager Bill Stroud to downsize the linendepartment in their stores, he felt a familiar twinge. It was 1979,and it wasn't the first time the geniuses in charge had decidedto think small.

Stroud had already been through the shrinkage process as amerchandiser for the record department. Record store chains hadmoved in and made department store record departments obsolete.When Stroud suggested expanding his department to compete, he wasmet instead with an order to downsize. Eventually, the departmentfolded.

So Stroud moved to sporting goods-with virtually the sameresult. Next came the toy department-relegated to the back burnerand finally the ash heap with the advent of Toys "R"Us.